Stanley



Stanley from the FIGAS plane

The Falkland Islands are bigger than I had thought they were.  They are made up of the two main Islands of East and West Falklands, and 778 smaller islands.  Overall they cover around 4700 square miles, which is just over half the size of Wales.  Whilst the larger islands are all habitable, and some have farms and small settlements on them, the only town is Stanley on East Falklands.  Of the almost 2500 inhabitants (excluding the military base in Mount Pleasant) , 2115 of them live in Stanley.
Everywhere other than Stanley is regarded as Camp.  There are a number of other small settlements in Camp, with just under 200 people living elsewhere on East Falkland, about 125 on West Falkland, and just over 40 on the smaller islands.

Jubilee Villas

But even as the only actual town on the islands, Stanley is still very small.  Whilst the residential part goes out a bit further. The main centre of the town is only about three streets by seven.  There is the all important jetty and visitor centre; a bank, but no cash point; a post office with a philately bureau - apparently collectors stamps are big business here; a police station where you can see about five helmets lined up by the door and three vehicles outside; and a shopping centre, with a supermarket/clothes shop, cafe, electrical shop and a hairdressers in it.

1982 Memorial

Just off the centre is the hospital, the government buildings and Governor's House and a little further again is the museum.  The museum is interesting.  It covers a range of stuff from maritime and farming, to how people used to live, and the 1982 conflict.  As a person who is not keen on dentists to start with, I was looking with horror at the primitive dentist's chair with foot propelled drill, when a local came up and said she remembered being in that chair and that the dentist often only pedalled the drill very slowly.  She was glad when he left; I was glad never to have had that particular experience at all.

The 1982 Conflict section was good as it had a  number of pieces of Argentine propaganda and some journals that the locals kept, which gave an fascinating insight into what it was really like during that time.  The locals talked about how the Argentine soldiers would come and ask them to buy food because they were hungry, about how one of their friends had gone back to the bottle, and about the distress felt when a civilian house was accidentally hit killing three locals.

William and Kate 'on tour'

On a less serious note was the little exhibit dedicated to the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  As part of their celebrations they obtained a life size cardboard cut out of their engagement picture and took it on a tour of the islands taking photos of it in all of the different places and with various local people.  The resulting album was amusing to see although you have to wonder whether William himself would be able to stifle a laugh if he sees it during his visit here.

Stanley Cathedral

Otherwise there are a couple of hotels, a few B&Bs, some gift shops, a couple of cafes, two churches and of course, some pubs.  One good solid day of sightseeing and you could have been everywhere there is to go and seen everything there is to see.

But that wouldn't mean that you have got to know Stanley.  We chose to spend a bit long here, not just so that we could do a couple of day trips and take advantage of the comforts of home, but also so that we could get an idea of what it is to be a Falkland Islander.

The Penguin News office

Stanley is a proper little village.  Everyone knows everyone, and everything about everyone.  The opening hours of some of the shops are short and erratic, revolving around the arrival of the cruise ships.  In season, they have about five cruise ships a week, and the schedule is printed in the local newspaper, The Penguin News, so that the pubs, cafes, tour guides and gift shops know when to expect a 'rush' on.  We read an article in the Penguin News about the annual raft race and it referred to one of the competing families arriving late 'as usual' for the start.  This kind of comment can only work in a place where everyone knows that this family is notorious for being late.

4x4 with F6G numberplate

And then there are the vehicles.  Now in London, many people drive 4x4s just to do the school run.  Here though the fact that just about every vehicle you see is a 4x4 is fully justified, or even essential.  Even in the centre of Stanley they only salt a few of the roads when it is icy, and as soon as you get out of the town, the majority of roads are not tarmac, and many are just very uneven grassy tracks.

Of course with such a small population, the number plates are pretty tiny. They all start with an F and end with the appropriate letter for the year, but in the middle, the most they have is three numbers.  Nic was very pleased to get a picture of one of the three character plates, F6G.

Talking of the driving, it did seem rather strange that in such a small town, we should find one of the junctions marked up as an accident blackspot.  We never saw more that two cars there at any one time, so no idea how they manage to have enough accidents to merit it being a blackspot.  And it rather amuses me that there is a Stanley bypass road.

One of hundreds of wrecks in the islands

But whatever the size of the town or the facilities available, it is the people that really make a place.  The people here were friendly, although I think that some were perhaps getting slightly fed up of all the journalists in town.  We stayed at the Waterfront Hotel, where we were made by welcome by Alex, the Chilean owner.  He talked to us about the community and the concerns about the situation with Argentina, and explained some of the difficulties that the blockading had created.  The main one was that the supply of fresh produce from Chile was very limited; it had become very hard to get enough eggs or fresh fruit and vegetables brought over.  And we saw for ourselves that the local garden centre had to put a message into the Penguin News to tell people that they were unable to get cut flowers in for Valentines Day.  And one of the editorials said that whilst the islanders would welcome Prince William's visit, their first question to him might well be 'Did you bring any bananas?'

Aside from Alex, we  managed to get into quite a few conversations with people, especially once they realised  that we weren't just here on a landing from one of the cruises.  One of our best evenings was when we went to the pub recommended to us by Jackie, our host on Pebble Island.  She sent us to The Rose, and whilst it wasn't very busy, and did have the Sun journalists from our hotel there, people were friendly and we were soon chatting about life on the islands.  And when time was called, we were invited back to the owners' place next door to continue the conversation - and drinking - for a bit longer.

To a person from the UK, the Falkland Islands are like a home from home.  Small, definitely.  A little lacking in facilities and choice, yes.  Windy, absolutely.  But for all its limitations, it was a great place to visit.

Flying FIGAS to Sea Lion Island

Our plane and pilot for Sea Lions

From Stanley we caught a flight to Sea Lion Island, which is at the South Easterly edge of the islands.  Flights here are provided by FIGAS, which is the Falkland Islands Government Air Service.  They have a small fleet of Britten-Norman Islander planes, each of which can take up to six passengers.  The scheduling of the flights is based on demand, but generally one plane goes around some of the islands clockwise and another anti clockwise, picking up and dropping off at different islands along the way.  They often then do a second trip, normally going via different islands again.

We had booked our place on a plane some months ago, but the flight itself was only confirmed the night before.  We discovered which one we were on by listening to the radio at 18:15, when they announce the flights for the next day, reading out the names of who is being picked up and dropped off at each stop.  We were on the second set, so had to check in at 10:30.

Although some FIGAS flights do stop at the Mount Pleasant Airport, Stanley has its own little airstrip closer to town.  When we arrived a the building we were checked in, weighed, and given little luggage tags to identify that our bags were going to Sea Lion Island, all by the same woman. A couple of guys were baggage handlers, taking all the bags and any extra cargo, and driving it over to the plane once it arrived.  We were met by the pilot who took us out to the plane and made sure we were all buckled in.  And this was the big and busy terminal!

Sea Lion Island from the plane

There were just the two of us on this flight and we were headed directly to Sea Lions.  Thirty five minutes later, having travelled over sea and very flat and desolate islands with little signs of life, we reached the shoreline of Sea Lions and could see lots of little blacks and white speckles on the beaches - our first sighting of the penguins.
As we approached the grassy airstrip next to the lodge, a couple of horses were ambling along the edge, but the pilot made a good landing and we were there. The lodge manager, Jenny, met us at the plane and took our bags.  It was obviously rush hour here, as another plane was coming in to land from the other direction with four other new guests.

First Day on The Falkland Islands



Falkland Islands minefields



Well the Argentinean President hasn't persuaded Chile to stop any flights to the Falkland Islands yet, so we decided to go ahead with our visit as planned and hope that we can get back later.  

We flew in on the one weekly flight from Punta Arenas in Chile  to the Mount Pleasant airport on the military base.  The flight was full and according to regular travellers, much busier than usual.



Penguin News on Prince William

From the amount of large camera equipment that we saw, it looks like most of the extra visitors are journalists and cameramen here to cover Prince William's tour of duty.  There is certainly an air of excitement about the place even though they have said he will not be making any ceremonial visits; as we were waiting for the bus to leave the airport we heard a helicopter overhead and there was a buzz of speculation about whether it might be him flying it.


Falklands road to Stanley


We were booked onto the bus transfer into Stanley, which took about an hour driving through mostly deserted countryside.

We did however see plenty of warning signs that indicate the minefields that were left over from the 1982 conflict.


Falkland Islands minefields



The guide books and visitors information assure us that all of the minefields are marked, so it is safe to walk around as long as you avoid the marked areas.

We arrived in Stanley and could immediately see what a tiny place it is.  Our hotel - yes we actually have a proper hotel here - is nicely in the middle of town and our room has a view across the bay.  Having booked ourselves in for dinner, we set off for one of the nearby pubs to get an idea of what the place is like.



Cat in the Victory Bar



Walking into The Victory was just like walking into a traditional British pub.  The room was a bit on the dark and dingy side, with four dart boards, a pool table and a few fruit machines.  The bar had all the drinks and mixers that you would usually find in a British pub, with only two exceptions; they had a bottle of Chilean Pisco, and they don't have beer on draft.  Presumably the breweries don't deliver quite that far!  They even had walkers crisps.

One obvious regular was a British Blue cat which was very friendly.  It sat next to us and was enjoying the attention until suddenly it got up, ran over to the bar and jumped onto an empty bar stool next to a couple of guys.  We quickly realised that the reason for the sudden move was that it had heard them open a packet of crisps.  It watched every crisp go from the packet to the mouth and was clearly disappointed not to get any.  When we bought some crisps later it was as much as we could do to stop the cat from helping itself.